Beware of Proofreader Errors

"Why is a raven like a writing desk?" is a riddle proposed by the Mad Hatter during a tea party in Lewis Carroll's classic 1865 novel, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Alice was unable to answer the riddle because there was no answer. The Mad Hatter admitted as much. When Alice said she couldn't answer it the Mad Hatter finally admitted the riddle has no solution. He said, "I haven't the slightest idea!"

Alice sighed at the Mad Hatter's response and said, "I think you might do something better with the time, than waste it in asking riddles that have no answers." The Mad Hatter replied, "If you knew Time as well as I do, you wouldn't talk about wasting it. It's him." You can read the chapter with the riddle here.

The riddle became one of the world's most famous riddles. Carroll did not intend for there to be an answer but her later offered an answer to the riddle in an updated version of the book. Carroll wrote that the answer is, "Because it can produce a few notes, tho they are very flat; and it is never put with the wrong end in front!" Carroll also wrote never as "nevar," which is raven spelled backwards but the clever pun was erased by a proofreader according to Gizmodo.

Read it all here.

Related reading: Pen Pecked Dreamers

Becoming a Novelist is a Long Learning Process

Hugh Howey explains:

I started writing my first novel when I was twelve years old. I was thirty-three when I completed my first rough draft. That’s twenty years of wanting to do something and not knowing how. Twenty years of failure and frustrations and giving up.

A big part of the problem is that I didn’t know what I didn’t know. I didn’t know which questions to ask, much less who might have the answers.

These days, people write to me as if I know what I’m doing. Or like I have a shortcut to success. I’m not sure either is true. One thing I’ve learned is that luck plays a massive role. But what I do have are some insights today that I wish I’d had twenty years ago, tips and pointers that might’ve saved me a lot of headache and heartache if I’d known them sooner. Maybe it’ll help some aspiring writer out there if I jot them all down now.

Read it all here.

Related reading: John Scalzi Speaks to Young Writers; Pen-Pecked Dreamers